Friday, 6 June 2025
Defence of Sydney Monument, North Fort, North Head
Her Excellency the Honourable Margaret Beazley AC KC, Governor of New South Wales

Thank you, James^[1].

As we take in this spectacular view of the harbour, in a place which feels so calm and peaceful this morning, it is hard to imagine what was going on in and under these waters 83 years ago.

1942 was a troubling year for Australians. Although many, some only a few years older than our school students here today^[2], were already fighting in the European theatre of war, and then as far south as the Mediterranean and North Africa, they were fighting Britain’s war. This all changed overnight when on 8 December 1941 Prime Minister John Curtin announced over the radio:

Men and women of Australia, we are at war with Japan.^[3]    

The previous day Japanese forces had bombed Pearl Harbour.

Prime Minister Curtin’s words were as ominous as they were blunt.  Australia was directly at war with its own enemy.  As the Prime Minister both exhorted and explained to the Australian people: 

Each must take his or her place in the service of the nation, for the nation itself is in peril. This is our darkest hour. Let that be fully realized. Our efforts in the past two years must be as nothing compared with the efforts we must now put forward.

News of the peril tumbled off the pages of our newspapers and over the air waves almost on a daily basis.   Singapore fell to the Japanese on 15 February 1942^[4].   Darwin was bombed 4 days later, on 19 February^[5].  By the end of March Japanese troops had captured many areas to the north of Australia including in places we now know as Indonesia, East Timor and Papua and New Guinea^[6].

The war was getting closer, and people feared that an invasion of Australia was imminent.  Few anticipated the reality was so close.

Some two months after the events of which I have spoken, in the early hours of Friday, 29^th of May^[7] with a nearly full moon, but with plenty of cloud cover, 5 Japanese submarines lay in the inky waters about 65 kilometres northeast of here.  A few hours before sunrise, Warrant Officer Susumu’s float plane was catapulted off the forward deck of Japanese submarine I-21^[8]. About 25 minutes later Susumu and his navigator Iwasaki flew through these heads and towards the Harbour Bridge. Iwasaki sketched the submarine boom net in the harbour, noted its opening, and a little later drew the position of HMAS Canberra moored adjacent to Farm Cove. To give that a sense of proximity, where I live at Government House, Farm Cove is the first thing you see looking out the loungeroom window, along the pathway between the Opera House and Lady Macquarie’s Chair.

Pilot Susumu then circled twice over the harbour spotting the USS Chicago, four destroyers and a hospital ship.  He lowered his float plane to only 30 metres above the water and then flew between the American ship and the Harbour Bridge. One account says that “He was so low he could look up at the bridge.”

At about 5:00am, their reconnaissance completed, Susumu flew his aircraft right over here where we are at North Head, heading out to sea in search of the mothership. Although, the first part of the mission had been a success, this next part was messy. First, they had trouble finding submarine 1-21 as the light from the moon was by then obscured by clouds. But having located I-21, the seas were so rough the landing was a disaster. The plane’s undercarriage was damaged as it hit the surface of the water and then a wave flipped it on its back.  Susumu and Iwaskai were rescued, however, the Japanese feared that the aircraft might be sighted and give away their position – and their mission. They tried to sink the overturned plane first by shooting holes in it – without success. The crew then took to it with a large hammer, and it slowly sank just as the sun was rising and as Allied ships could be seen approaching the harbour.

In 1994, 52 years later, the wreckage of the plane was found near Norah Head by a team including Philip Dulhunty who had spotted Susumu’s aircraft that fateful night. Dulhunty and Susumu became friends.

It is important to recognise this about the reconnaissance that night. Yes, we were at war with the Japanese, and we didn’t welcome their encroachment on our territory.   But their strategic planning and the skill in that manoeuvre was unsurpassed, except perhaps for the tricky landing. Today, we combine to use our mutual skills, intelligence and planning for a better world for both our countries.

Let me turn to the next couple of days in late May, specifically the afternoon of the 31^st.   By this time, the five submarines that had been hovering to the northeast moved within 11 kilometres of the harbour. At 4:30 in the afternoon they released three midget submarines^[9] whose mission was to sink the USS Chicago and other large ships in the harbour. Each submarine was powered by electric batteries, had two crew members and was armed with two torpedoes. Even though these small submarines have always been referred to as midget submarines, they were 24 metres long^[10], a bit longer than a semi-trailer, and narrow, like the shape of a pencil.

The first submarine entered the harbour at 8:00 in the evening and became entangled in part of the submarine netting^[11]. It was spotted about 15 minutes later by a Maritime Services Board watchman, 52-year-old Jimmy Cargill, who was looking around the area in a rowboat.^[12]

A couple of hours later the second one snuck through the opened gate in the net by sitting underneath a Manly ferry. It headed towards Garden Island, then manoeuvred into position and fired both its torpedoes. Whistling past the USS Chicago, one ran ashore on Garden Island and fortunately didn’t explode. The other passed under the Chicago, then under a Dutch submarine, before striking the sea wall.  It exploded, damaging the Dutch submarine^[13] and sinking HMAS Kuttabul. The Kuttabul was an old ferry, that had been taken over in the war effort to accommodate Australia and Allied naval personnel.  21 sailors died in the sinking.  

The very human side of this sad loss of life will be the subject of Chloe’s talk in a few minutes.^[14]

This second submarine slipped out of the harbour, and was not found until 2006, when a group of recreational scuba divers discovered it near Newport on the Northern Beaches after noticing an anomaly on their echo sounder.   With the assistance of the Australian Navy the identity of the sub was confirmed. This is the likely resting place of its two crew members, twenty-three-year-old Sub-Lieutenant Katsuhisa Ban, and twenty-four-year-old Petty Officer Mamoru Ashibe.^[15]

The third submarine was sighted by the Australian Navy ship HMAS Yandra as it entered the harbour and was later sunk in nearby Taylor Bay. With none of the midget submarines returning, the 5 larger submarines dispersed. A week later two of them bombarded the eastern suburbs of Sydney and the city of Newcastle, fortunately with minimal damage.

In all, 27 lives were lost in that mission: 19 Australians, 2 British and 6 Japanese.  And Sydney was on high alert as was the entire nation.

Later research has revealed that although the Japanese Navy had at one stage proposed an invasion, the Japanese Army had dismissed it as poor strategy.^[16] In retrospect it seems that the attack in Sydney Harbour was to cause significant damage and potentially draw US and Allied resources from the crucial naval battles taking place further north in the Pacific.

Given that as we now know the reality of those few days in May 1942 was a strategic diversionary tactic, and not a full scale planned invasion, it is reasonable to ask why do we remember this occasion today.

There are two particular answers that I would like to share.   The first is contained in the often-quoted phrase, “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty”^[17]

The second is this. We remember and thank those who during the war years dedicated themselves to protecting the Port of Sydney. If you look closely at the monument, you will see a long list of the groups involved, many of whom could only operate because of the efforts of dedicated volunteers.

It is also a reminder, as I have already intimated that there is bravery on both sides of war as there are families and loved ones. 

Twenty-four years after the attack in Sydney, the mother of one of the Japanese submariners came to Sydney to see where her son had died. During her visit she presented gifts to the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. One was this poem^[18]:

I nurtured my son just as I grew precious flowers
So that he could dedicate himself to the Emperor.
Now that the storm has passed
And all the cherry blossoms have blown away,
The garden looks very deserted.

This year as we mark the 30^th year of this monument’s unveiling, by my predecessor His Excellency Rear Admiral Peter Sinclair, we remember and thank those in the original ‘Waringah Australia Remembrance Trust’ and subsequent ‘Australia Remembers - Northern Beaches & North Shore Committee’ for helping us to continue remembering - through the establishment of this monument and this annual Commemoration Service.

The storm may have passed, but we continue to remember all who lost their lives.

Lest we forget.

[1] Mr James Griffin MP, Member for Manly, Shadow Minister for Energy, Climate Change and Environment, and Shadow Minister for Customer Service and Digital Government, Parliament of NSW, Patron of Australia Remembers - Northern Beaches & North Shore Committee

[2] In 1939 those presenting for enlistment were required to be 20 years old, then in 1941, 19 years old, and 1943, 18 years old. Written parental consent was required for anyone under 21. https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/journal/j29/civils

[3] https://john.curtin.edu.au/audio/00282.html

[4] https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/fall-of-singapore

[5] https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/E84294

[6] https://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/pacificwar/timeline.htm

[7] There is some dispute about the date – but the reasons for using 29 May are set out at the bottom of this article

[8] ibid

[9] https://www.naa.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-05/fs-192-japanese-midget-submarine-attacks-on-sydney-1942.pdf

[10] https://www.awm.gov.au/visit/exhibitions/bigthingsinstore/midgetsub

[11] This infrastructure is referred to as an ‘anti torpedo boom’ in some accounts.

[12] https://www.anzacmemorial.nsw.gov.au/our-stories/our-stories/japanese-submarines-sydney-harbour

[13] https://navyhistory.au/occasional-paper-107-dutch-submarine-k-ix-netherlands-east-indies-naval-forces-under-us-navy-operational-control-then-ran-control-as-hmas-k9-in-swpa-during-wwii/

[14] Chloe Jearapunpong, from Queenwood School, Mosman delivered the Paul Fenn Oration. Her talk was about Bandsman Melville Cumming, RAN a sailor on HMAS Kuttabul on the evening of 31 May-1 June 1942

[15] https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-434457114/view

[16] https://www.awm.gov.au/sites/default/files/stanley_paper.pdf

[17] https://www.monticello.org/research-education/thomas-jefferson-encyclopedia/eternal-vigilance-price-liberty-spurious-quotation/

[18] https://anzacportal.dva.gov.au/wars-and-missions/world-war-ii-1939-1945/events/australia-under-attack-1940-1945